Holiday Shopping Helps Boost Oklahoma Tax Revenues

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — State finance officials say a brisk holiday shopping season helped boost Oklahoma's sales tax receipts last month to an all-time monthly high and sends a strong signal about the state's economic health.

But state Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger (DOR'-fling-ur) said Tuesday that overall collections to the state's general fund were down slightly in December and for the first six months of the fiscal year. That's mostly due to lower oil and natural gas prices.

General fund collections in December were $528.9 million, down by 2.5 percent from December 2011.

Doerflinger says sales tax receipts to the state's general fund totaled $172 million in December. That is the highest for any month ever and an increase of 12.1 percent over December 2011.